HP makes a lot more than printers. In 2026 it builds laptops, desktops, gaming gear, video-meeting hardware, mobile workstations, and the security software that runs on top of all of it.
If the only HP product in your house is an inkjet that nags you about low ink, that is a very old picture of the company. Printing still matters to HP. It just isn’t the biggest part of the business anymore.
Here is the plain-English version of what HP actually sells today, why the laptop names all changed, and which HP you are even looking at when you see the logo. Because there are two of them.
So what does HP actually make?
HP makes personal computers and printers, plus gaming hardware, meeting-room gear, workstations, and endpoint security, sold to both regular shoppers and big companies. Inside the company it splits into two reporting arms: Personal Systems, which is the computer side, and Printing. Under those sit the brands you actually see in a store. OmniBook and EliteBook cover laptops. Omen and HyperX handle gaming. Poly does video calls. HP Z builds heavy-duty workstations for engineers and video editors. Wolf Security is the software layer that tries to keep all of it from getting hacked. You can see the full brand list on HP’s company profile in our directory. So the honest answer is: HP is five businesses wearing one logo.
Is HP just a printer company?
No. The computer side of HP is bigger than the printer side, and has been for years. HP pulled in roughly 54 billion dollars in revenue in its 2023 fiscal year, and the Personal Systems arm (laptops, desktops, workstations) is the larger of its two segments by sales. Printing is still a serious business, and a very profitable one, thanks to ink and toner. But the reason most people think HP equals printers is history, not maths. Home printers were the HP product that ended up on millions of desks in the 1990s and 2000s, and the ink-subscription reputation stuck. Today the volume driver is Windows PCs, not paper.
HP and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are not the same company
The old Hewlett-Packard split into two separate public companies on November 1, 2015, and they have run independently ever since. HP Inc kept the personal computers and printers. Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) took the servers, storage, and networking gear that lives in data centres. So when you buy a laptop or a printer, that is HP Inc. When a company buys racks of servers, that is HPE. They share a founding story (William Hewlett and David Packard started the business in 1939) and HP Inc still sits in Palo Alto, California. But they are different firms with different logos and different customers. The one we are talking about here, the device maker, is HP Inc.
Why you can’t buy a Spectre or Pavilion laptop anymore
In May 2024 HP retired its old laptop brand names, Spectre, Envy, Pavilion, and Dragonfly, and folded everything into two families: OmniBook for consumers and EliteBook for business. HP said the goal was to simplify a confusing lineup and get ready for the AI PC era. If you owned a Spectre and loved it, the good news is the machines did not vanish, only the names did. Here is where the old brands ended up.
| Old HP brand | What it was | Where it lives now |
|---|---|---|
| Spectre | Premium consumer | OmniBook (top Ultra tier) |
| Envy | Upper-mid consumer | OmniBook (mid tiers) |
| Pavilion | Budget consumer | OmniBook (entry tiers) |
| Dragonfly | Premium business | EliteBook (top Ultra tier) |
How HP’s laptop names work in 2026
HP now uses two laptop families, OmniBook for home and EliteBook for work, with a number and sometimes a letter that tells you how premium the machine is. Consumer OmniBooks use odd numbers (3, 5, 7) and add an X or Ultra label at the top end. Business EliteBooks use even numbers and do the same X or Ultra thing for their flagships. The first machine out of the gate was the OmniBook X, a Copilot+ AI PC running a Snapdragon X Elite chip, which is HP’s way of saying it has the on-device brain Windows now wants for its AI features. Desktops follow the same split: OmniDesk for home, EliteDesk for work, with OmniStudio and EliteStudio covering all-in-ones. Once you learn the odd-versus-even trick, the whole range gets easy to read.
Which HP laptop tier should you actually buy?
Match the number to how hard you push a laptop, and the choice gets simple. If you mostly browse, stream, and write, an OmniBook 3 or 5 has plenty for the money and there is no reason to spend up. If you want a machine that feels premium and lasts a few extra years, the OmniBook 7 or an OmniBook X (the Copilot+ AI PC models) is the sweet spot for most people. Go EliteBook only if you actually need work-grade features: tighter security, easier fleet management for IT teams, and longer support. Buying an EliteBook for home use mostly means paying for things you will never switch on. And skip the top Ultra tier unless portability and screen quality genuinely matter more to you than price.
What are HP Z workstations, and who needs one?
HP Z is the company’s line of workstations, machines built for heavy professional work rather than everyday browsing. They come as Z desktops and ZBook mobile workstations, and they are aimed at people who push a computer hard: 3D artists, CAD engineers, video editors, and data and AI teams. The difference from a normal laptop or desktop is under the hood, with pro-grade graphics, more memory, and certification for the specific software these fields run. Most people never need one, and that is fine. But if your job involves rendering, simulation, or crunching big datasets, this is the corner of HP built for you. You can see where the Z line sits in HP’s wider range on its directory profile.
What is HyperX, and why does HP own a gaming brand?
HyperX is HP’s gaming brand, covering headsets, keyboards, mice, controllers, and more recently gaming laptops and monitors. HP bought HyperX from Kingston back in June 2021 for 425 million dollars, mostly to get a real foothold with gamers. As of January 2026 HP pulled its gaming products together under HyperX, so it now sits as the gaming face of the company alongside the older Omen line of gaming PCs. If you want the specifics, the HyperX brand page in our directory lists the current product spread across laptops, desktops, monitors, and accessories. It is a reminder that HP is not just a beige-office-box company anymore.
What is Poly, and why does HP make video-call gear?
Poly is HP’s meeting-room and headset brand, the cameras, speakerphones, and headsets that power video calls in offices. It was formed from the merger of two older names, Plantronics and Polycom, and HP acquired it in March 2022 for about 3.3 billion dollars. The smart part of the deal is that Poly gear works across the big meeting platforms, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet, rather than being locked to anything HP-only. Product lines like Poly Studio (room cameras), Voyager (wireless headsets), and Blackwire (wired headsets) show up on the Poly brand page in our directory. This is the part of HP most home users never see, but it is a big deal in corporate offices.
Does HP still make printers?
Yes, printing is still one of HP’s two core businesses, running from cheap home inkjets to office laser printers to giant large-format plotters, plus all the ink, toner, and paper that feed them. HP also runs Instant Ink, a subscription that ships cartridges to your door before you run out. The reason HP printers are so cheap up front is that model: the company makes its money on the supplies, not the hardware, which is also why the ink can feel pricey and why HP has taken heat over cartridge lock-in. Love it or hate it, printing quietly funds a lot of the company. So no, the printers are not going anywhere.
What is HP doing with AI?
HP’s AI push has two sides: the AI PCs it sells, and the AI it uses to run itself. On the product side, HP builds Copilot+ PCs (laptops with a dedicated neural chip for Windows AI features) and heavier NVIDIA RTX-based machines for creators and engineers. On the internal side, HP signed a Frontier partnership with OpenAI in June 2026 to run OpenAI’s platform inside its own operations and customer-facing support, so that one is about how HP works, not a gadget you buy. If you are trying to make sense of the assistants behind all this, our guide to what ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude actually cost breaks down the players. And if you want to see how far local AI has come, the story of a 30B model that runs on a single laptop is a good measure of where AI PCs are headed.
How HP compares to Apple and Samsung
HP competes mostly on Windows laptops and printers, where Apple sits out and Samsung plays only lightly, while both of those rivals own ground HP does not touch, like phones and watches. HP has no smartphone, no smartwatch, and no earbuds line the way Apple does. Its strength is the Windows PC, at home and across big companies, plus printing and enterprise gear nobody else bundles the same way. Samsung does make premium Windows laptops that go head to head with HP’s best, and if you are weighing that side of things, our look at the Galaxy Book 5 Pro is a useful compare point. The short version: HP is the Windows-and-print specialist, not an everything-you-own ecosystem play.
Quick answers
Who owns HP? Nobody single. HP Inc is a publicly traded company, independent since the 2015 split from the old Hewlett-Packard.
Is HP the same as HPE? No. HP Inc makes PCs and printers. Hewlett Packard Enterprise makes data-centre servers and networking. Two separate companies since November 2015.
What replaced the HP Spectre? The OmniBook, specifically its top Ultra tier. HP retired the Spectre name in 2024.
Does HP make phones? Not in most markets today. HP’s device focus is laptops, desktops, printers, gaming, and meeting-room gear.
The takeaway
If you are shopping HP in 2026, get one thing straight before anything else: which family you actually want. OmniBook is the home line, EliteBook is the work line, and you can ignore the old Spectre and Pavilion names completely because they are gone. After that, remember HP is really five businesses under one logo, computers, printers, gaming through HyperX and Omen, meetings through Poly, and security through Wolf. Hold that map in your head and you will not overpay for the wrong tier, or accidentally end up reading about an HPE server when all you wanted was a laptop.
About this article. Written and fact-checked by the Brandligo editorial desk. AI tooling was used to gather and cross-check sources; every fact and figure here was verified against the primary sources linked above before publication, including HP’s own newsroom and press releases. Published August 12, 2026. If you spot something out of date, tell us at [email protected].